


neptune's child

by pearlaqua



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Lots of Crying, M/M, The government is evil, jeno is an experiment, other artists are mentioned - Freeform, renjun and jaemin are roommates, violence isn't that graphic but it's there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:30:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21578911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearlaqua/pseuds/pearlaqua
Summary: Maybe trying to break into area 119 wasn’t Renjun and Jisung’s best idea. But if it wasn’t for that, Jaemin would never have fallen in love again.And Jeno would be dead.
Relationships: Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35





	neptune's child

**Author's Note:**

> don't let the beginning fool you, this is actually full of cliches
> 
> tw: mentions of blood

“Hey, Nana. Remember when the internet was talking about… raid Area 51?” Renjun says through the phone.

Jaemin sighs. Yes, he remembers.

Every Thursday, Jisung spends the night at the apartment he shares with Renjun and they talk about conspiracy theories, paranormal phenomena and everything you could find in the questionable nooks of internet. Jaemin doesn’t believe in any of that, but it’s funny seeing his friends so excited about something and he is more than willing to listen at their endless rambling, even if he regrets it the following morning.

“And then someone mentioned a lot of countries have areas like that?” his friend asks again, with a noticeable hurry on his intonation.

“Yeah, and the supposed Korean one is named the same as the emergency phone number. How clever,” he tries to joke, testing what the purpose of the conversation is.

“What if I told you Jisung and I casually found it?”

. . .

What.

“How do you _casually_… stop talking nonsense,” Jaemin says, attempting to end the call right there. It must be a joke and, after an entire day in the library studying Electromagnetism, he doesn’t have the energy for that.

But Jisung takes the phone this time and, oh, the hint of fear in his voice when he says…

“Jaemin, we are not alone.”

❅❆❅

Jaemin sprints all the way home.

He still considers the possibility of their friends lying to him, but the awkward feeling in his guts is telling him otherwise. It is suffocating, and he needs to get home soon. He has listened enough of their conspiracy theories to know when they are serious about something. And even if he is a little skeptical, he must give them the benefit of the doubt.

Also, he is angry.

If it’s true, what the hell were they thinking? Were they even thinking? How could they be so reckless? How two young adults who supposedly own a functional brain could walk to their deaths like that? He wouldn’t stand if someone hurts Jisung, he is the baby among his friends and it’s their shared duty to look after him since his parents are often working overseas.

Well, it’s just Jaemin’s duty since he is the one who’s in constant touch with Jisung’s mom and gives her reports when they’re hanging out together. He even attends some parents’ meetings pretending to be his older brother.

It’s the arrangement they have since elementary school. Taking care of Jisung was Jaemin’s first and longer responsibility.

He still remembers the moment his neighbor gave him the mission to bring her son home from school because she will work two shifts per day and a seven-year-old can’t walk through the streets alone.

And if he doesn’t want to, he also recalls when the woman got married and moved to Seoul with Jisung and his new husband.

But his favorite memory is Jisung waiting for him at the bus station, the day he left his hometown to attend Seoul National University.

Things are different with Renjun.

They know each other since their first day at university, even if their majors are different. How can you not befriend the boy who spilled green tea on your favorite jacket? A friendship born between endless bickering and moral support during exam weeks is meant to last forever. That’s why they moved together in the middle of the year (not because paying bills is a struggle when you’re a student far from home).

Everything has been working well for them… until now, because Jaemin doesn’t know what’s going on inside their apartment and the way he is remembering how he met his friends feels as if they are dying.

Jaemin opens the door expecting to see the worst scenario ever; a big and awful creature, blue or green, with three eyes and tentacles suffocating their friends to death.

He imagines a lot of situations between two seconds, but that’s not what he sees.

Renjun and Jisung are sitting on the couch looking safe and sound, thanks to the stars. Between them is a guy he has never seen before, wearing dirty pajamas, and looking at some undefined point on the horizon. Jaemin doesn’t notice he’s gawking at the scene until the door closes with a gust, startling him.

As he walks in, he notices how handsome the stranger is; cold features adorned with long platinum blonde hair that gives him an ethereal appearance, along a well-built body. It isn’t a view he is blessed to have every day in his messy living room. But hey, Earth to Nana, you weren’t called to fantasize about a _man_.

“So… where is our new green friend?” he asks pretending to look around, knowing well it’s only them in the apartment.

Jisung tilts his head, pointing to the stranger with the top of it.

“Okay, look, I’m probably not the smartest person in the world but I’m pretty sure that’s not how an alien looks like.”

“We found him in the forest around the area after we saw the military base and had to pedal for our lives.”

“Were you riding bikes in the forest? Jisung, tell me you were using a helmet.”

“That’s not the point!”

“How are you sure you found area 119 and not… an asylum or an extreme security jail?” Jaemin questions while gazing cautiously to the unknown man. He looks disoriented, his eyes don’t land in a specific place of the room. He’s just there, spacing out. Perhaps drugged.

“He’s weird,” voices Renjun as if it means something relevant in their discussion.

“So are psychopaths,” counterattacks Jaemin.

They exchange looks for a while. A scared one from Jisung, a conflicted one from Renjun and a mad one from Jaemin. When the latter wins the staring battle, he glares at the stranger.

He notices the mud in their legs and his bare feet, the upsetting bloodstains splashed all over his outfit and the improvised tourniquet in his arm and leg, which are both entirely red.

“I'll fix that, then we'll talk,” is what Jaemin says before standing up to look for his first aid kid.

“I can’t believe I’m friends with the most stupid human beings alive.” Jaemin scowls when his friends finish telling him the story about how they decoded leaked government information shared on a suspicious website, skipped classes and rode their bikes for three hours until they found a military base, then tried to sneak in. And they were doing it successfully until the alarms were activated so they ran to hide in the forest… where they found the silent guy.

“Are you sure they didn't see you?” Jaemin questions again because he might be angry, but he still cares about his friends.

“We wouldn’t be here if so,” answers Renjun as if it’s nothing, and Jaemin can feel his blood boil.

“What about him? If he escaped from whatever that place is, they must be looking for him,” Jaemin says now, as he is finishing to treat the deep wound in the stranger’s forearm.

The stranger doesn’t flinch even once when the alcohol touches his skin and his high pain tolerance confirms most of their theories about where he is from. But what is the truth?

“He was bleeding a lot when we found him, and we couldn’t let him die in there.”

“What if- “

The question is interrupted by the sound of Renjun’s phone; Jaemin identifies the ringtone as the one his friend gave to his mom.

Renjun excuses himself and runs to his room and they let him, because calls from China are rare and expensive.

Jaemin starts to clean the laceration in the unknown guy’s right calf, when an almost inaudible whisper comes out of his mouth.

“Māmā.”

“What did you say?” Jaemin questions while furrowing his brows.

“Chenle," the man answers instead.

“Oh, is that your name?” Jisung inquires with curiosity shimmering in his eyes.

The stranger denies with his head.

“Who is Chenle?” tries the youngest again.

“Chenle… a t-trap… his head…” splutters the unknown man, his breath becoming visibly troubled as he tries to say the words. His hands squeeze his knees tight, until his knuckles turn white, and everything after that are unintelligible mumbles.

Jaemin stands up and sits beside him, caressing his back patiently, trying to soothe him. His thoughts are in the lines of ‘very traumatized psychiatric patient’ and ‘former inmate who lost his social abilities’ but he wants the boy to feel better regardless of his identity.

The proximity with the other’s body makes him realize how cold the stranger is, how much his skin feels like snow. Jisung, being on the other side, notices it too and goes to Jaemin’s room to bring a blanket and put it around the boy.

He calms down minutes later, letting out a long sigh that, for the way it ruffles their hairs, seems to exhale all the air in the universe. Then he looks at the two guys in front of him and signals his neck, “Name.”

Jisung frowns and looks at the other’s skin, searching for a name. He doesn’t find it, but there’s a barcode and beneath it he reads, “A119 E0423—2000 (D).”

“423,” says the guy, covering the numbers with his hand.

“Great, so now I have Stitch in my couch,” snorts Jaemin, feeling exasperated for the millionth time that night. It’s not that he is trying to be mean, he just can’t… understand this whole situation.

Maybe he fell asleep at the library and the situation is just a weird dream.

He is having too much mixed feelings for this to be true.

“Nana! Don’t be mean!” reprimands Jisung, throwing a cushion in the elder’s direction.

“Hey!” protests Jaemin, hugging the tossed item. “If he belongs there to the point of having a bar code in his skin, he must return.”

“No… NO!” yells 423, shaking his head vigorously.

All of a sudden, the building trembles as if an earthquake is happening. A freezing wind appears out of nothing, whirling wild around the screaming guy. Jaemin and Jisung get thrown back by a mysterious force that almost makes them reach the door. And they look at the spectacle with a mix of amusement and pure fear because, as the wind gusts are swiveling around the stranger, a huge ice wall is building.

Everything stops quivering when the ice-shield reaches the ceiling.

Renjun leaves his bedroom ready to evacuate for an alleged natural disaster and, if he wasn’t still talking to his mom, he would have cursed in Chinese and Korean.

Jaemin does.

A second later, he feels a thin layer of ice covering his mouth.

❅❆❅

_Run._

_Run._

_Run. Run. Run._

It’s all Jeno’s head thinks, all to his body responds for. He runs as his life depends on it, because it does. He grabs Chenle’s hand with all the strength he has left, because he can’t lose him.

They need to escape together.

They just managed to surpass the second exit without alarming someone. They can’t ruin it. They need to run faster. Johnny had been weeks stealing cards and figuring out passwords to help them at this moment.

However, at the third and last exit, Jeno fucks up.

He forgets the last number of the combination.

One, two and three attempts. The gate doesn’t open.

“I can’t remember… I can’t!” Jeno splutters, despair simmering inside him.

Chenle wheezes, hands on his knees. “Try again.”

But the high-security system already has alerted something is wrong. They can hear a few alarms blaring at the distance.

Jeno needs to focus; if they get caught, it will be his fault. He glances at the yet empty hallway before closing his eyes, number sequences flooding his head along with his unbridled heartbeats.

And there it is.

_0205._

Jeno inserts the password. Chenle pushes the door.

It opens.

Jeno can hear the guards running towards them, he can imagine the weapons they’re carrying. He has grown around them.

If they don’t get killed, they will get locked in the torture’s cage for days. _Who needs the pinky finger, anyway?_

Chenle is the one who reaches for his hand this time, taking him out of the trance and making him sprint to the great wall that surrounds the area. The twitching sound of electricity still covering it alerts them.

“Winwin is taking too long!” half whispers/half screams Jeno. And as if the protest summoned the other guy, the lights of the entire area shut down.

They have five seconds.

Five seconds to climb and jump, to climb and jump to freedom.

Chenle goes first, jumping gracefully like a cat.

Jeno falls with his feet and hands on what he supposes is grass, right before the voltage comes back to cover the walls again with a thundering sound.

The boys walk to the forest in front of them, noticing just now how tired they are. Their chests go up and down erratically, their bodies work hard trying to keep them breathing and moving their heavy legs.

But they’re almost free.

Jeno brings out the knife hiding in his pocket, the one Lucas stole from the kitchen last month when they started planning this. It might be the adrenaline, or his body accustomed to the pain, but he barely feels when the blade cuts deep in his forearm. Chenle squeezes both sides of it and a lot of blood comes out, staining their feet.

“I see it! Hand me the knife,” demands Chenle, and he uses the knife-edge to reach the identification chip and take it out of Jeno’s body, breaking it in two after that.

“When will I stop bleeding?” Jeno asks, low-key worried at the incessant red that’s covering his clothes.

“I don’t know, soon,” replies the boy who is now kneeling and cutting his friend’s calf with false expertise. Less blood comes out this time and he finds the tracking chip faster.

“Get up, it’s your turn,” says Jeno, taking the knife and repeating the process with Chenle’s forearm and calf.

They start to run again. Bleeding, sweating, crying.

It feels like an eternal race. The deafening alarms from the area are all they can hear, turning their heads numb. No matter how heavy their legs are becoming for the incessant race; they can’t stop, not now, not when they’re so close. To what? They don’t know, but everything will be better than being experiments for the rest of their lives.

When they reach a clearing in the forest, Chenle stops. Jeno stumbles on his feet for the halt and looks at his friend with worried eyes.

“I’m... getting... dizzy....” pronounces Chenle, panting hard.

“I'd carry you, but...” Jeno’s words disappear in a gasp. It’s getting hard for them to keep running in this state.

They're losing too much blood.

“It’s okay, I’ll just... rest for a minute,” says Chenle, leaning in a tree.

And for what happens right after, Jeno will blame himself for the rest of his life.

❅❆❅

Jeno is still in a daze when the strangers find him.

He doesn’t know why he follows them. They might be dangerous. They can hurt him, kill him or even return him to the area.

He doesn’t mind though, not now. He wanted to be free, yes, but not like this.

He barely processes everything they say to him, all the questions about who he is or what he wants. It’s annoying and he doesn’t have an answer for most of them. His mind is full of confusion and the tightness in his chest hasn’t disappeared yet, maybe it never will. _That_ scene is playing in an eternal loop on his mind and he wishes he could make it stop, he wishes he could go back in time to tell Chenle they can’t rest in that point of the forest or to never try to escape in first place.

How naïve of him. Freedom? Happiness? Such things aren’t allowed to beings like them.

He doesn’t want this. _No._

It can’t be real. _No._

Chenle. _No._

“No… NO!” he screams at the repeating memory, shaking his head as he tries to vanish it.

Everything is so intense, so overwhelming, that his body processes his thoughts as a threat.

The freezing wind that emerges unwittingly from his figure twirls around him. It brushes his sides, attempting to get him out of his reverie. Ice particles dance unrestrained in the wind, building a big shield at his surroundings, in a response to the actual disaster running through his mind.

He has lost control over his powers; the ice and wind that sleep inside him have taken the lead to protect him. Oh, if the instructors see this… but they won’t, Jeno isn’t anywhere near them now.

“Hey! Alien! Can you talk with us?” asks a voice Jeno recognizes as the one from the blond guy that appeared last, who’s also knocking at the ice walls. Isn’t he scared?

“Will you kill us?” questions the same voice again, and Jeno is now getting annoyed by that human in particular. Couldn’t he let him sulk in peace?

“Jaemin! You can’t say that!” protests another voice, a deeper one, from the boy with orange hair.

“Ok, ok. We come in peace; dear alien please don’t kill me. I offer Renjun as a slaughter,” Jaemin scoffs.

“Step back,” Jeno says, hoping they can understand him through the thick ice.

When the blurry silhouettes of the humans were far from him again, he has an internal fight to recover the control over his powers.

It has never been this difficult, but he has never felt this way before.

When the ice and wind finally give up, recovering the truth in the boy’s abilities to look after himself, he destroys the shield with just a finger snap. Ice crashes and splashes all around the living room, wetting himself, the boys and everything around them.

“Aliens don’t kill. Humans do,” he sentences when the shattering ends, closing his eyes right after, hoping it will make them shut up.

It works for a while because the boys are too busy trying to clean the disaster to bombard him with questions again. Jeno feels a little bad to see the orange-haired boy desperately covering the floor with towels to dry it faster and the one who talked in Chenle’s language using a weird little machine that emits warm air to dry the furniture.

He doesn’t feel bad about the blonde guy drying the walls with a dishcloth.

“So, no talking?” questions the stranger with the deep voice once he gives up with the towels.

“How can I know you’re reliable?” Jeno replies instead. He feels bad about giving him work, but the guilt won’t make his guard down. And yes, he trusted them enough to follow them to who-knows-where but not to give them information.

“We found you dying in the woods and brought you here, Jaemin cured your wounds, then you ruined our living room and we haven’t caused you any harm, so…” trails the language man, shutting off the machine after throwing some warm air to his dark hair.

Jeno sighs audibly. The weight of three pairs of eyes looking at him makes him sink in the couch a bit more. He has never enjoyed being on the spotlight.

“I’m a soldier,” he says, and the boys could have sprained their necks with how fast they looked at him.

“What kind of soldier?” asks the blonde, Jaemin, standing in front of him with crossed arms. If he weren’t that trained in fighting, he sure would be alarmed at the other’s short temper. He looks like he would hit him in the face anytime soon.

“Soldier 0423. Neptune’s troop, Dream Project," Jeno answers mechanically, adding the salute he is used to making whenever he pronounces those words.

“What does that mean?” questions the same guy.

It means he is around the 400th human they kidnaped for suspicious purposes. He doesn’t know where or how; besides Chenle, nobody can remember their lives before entering the area. That’s why his friend is so special. Jeno can only have vague dreams about a female voice screaming his name, the name he supposes is his; then his memories jump to when he was eight or ten and the wind danced around him for the first time. Neptune’s wind.

Doyoung says it’s a random choice, but Jeno likes to think otherwise.

He still remembers his first day of training, his shaking hands when Mrs. Kwon made him walk to the training camp with a girl with the same hair color as him, _Yen._ He can recall the exact moment two Neptunians were in front of them with their blue skin and white-platinum hair, and how instead of attacking the kids they hugged them the moment the woman left. Jeno had never felt that cold, but also, he had never felt that powerful.

He is part of the Neptune’s troop, one of the strongest ones. Ice runs through his veins, the coldest wind of the solar system fills his lungs. They are almost invincible.

Dream Project is the brand name they assigned to all that mess. Ten likes to joke around calling it Nightmare Project because no one in their right mind can dream about rising children to fight against other planets and then ditch them because they are too human to kill.

Because that’s what happened to them. When the authorities found out they secretly befriended the aliens and the other experiments, they dissolved the troops and created new ones. He never got to see any Neptunian after that, but he got placed in a squad with friends from different planets, with Chenle. And perhaps it was for the best.

As months passed, he found himself with a family of eight brothers. It doesn’t matter if they can’t remember their real families nor contact their alien’s ones, because they have each other. Jeno will miss them but, ironically, staying there is safer than trying to escape. He just proved it.

_They_ did.

“We are, uhm… genetically modified with beings from other planets,” is the only thing he can answer.

“Are you serious!?” exclaims the orange-haired guy, causing his voice to break a little.

“From what I know, only Neptunian’s genes allow you to control ice and wind.”

“How many soldiers they have?” questions the language-boy.

“I don’t know, a lot.”

It’s true. They aren’t allowed to have information about the area. All they know is because oldest used to take turns and spy the scientists, risking their lives for a slice of freedom. Jeno, as one of the youngest, had the mission to spread the information by quiet whispers and code words.

However, when the troops were rearranged, all the communication methods they had created became obsolete.

They don’t even know if their former teammates are alive, they can only see some of them when they are forced to fight against each other to test the troops’ abilities.

Jeno never got to fight against Yen.

Sometimes he wonders if her hands are still that cold.

“What about the name you said before?” asks the dark-haired human, dragging Jeno out of his muse.

“He is my friend,” says the soldier a few seconds after, with the tightness in his chest attacking again.

Although he is wind, he can’t breathe, the air is refusing to enter his body.

They wanted to escape for a long time, but now Jeno wishes they had never tried it.

❅❆❅

Jaemin wakes up wanting to sleep again.

He barely slept two hours last night, blame the not-blue alien in his living room and the eerie things he says.

It’s even more difficult to wake Jisung, who is sleeping at the left side of his bed. When Jaemin manages to push the youngest to the bathroom, he goes to the kitchen like a zombie in need of brains. He needs coffee soon, that’s the excuse to ignore the boy sitting on the couch like yesterday, but now clean and with Jaemin’s old clothes instead of the ones covered in blood (Renjun’s entire wardrobe is too small to even try to make him fit).

“You don’t sleep?” Jaemin questions the guy minutes later, with his usual cup in one hand and a toast in the other.

“Not daily,” is the short answer he receives.

_Of course,_ Jaemin thinks, it’s way more practical if the mutant kids don’t sleep much. Maybe he should ask for a few alien genes to don’t fall asleep in class anymore.

Jaemin finishes his breakfast in silence, trying to pretend he is alone there, not with a fugitive soldier staring at him. But he has problems pushing the coffee down his throat with those eyes on him.

Jisung appears in scene, stumbling with the couch and throwing himself next to the guy as if he couldn’t freeze him to death at any moment.

“Do you need anything?” Jisung says to the experiment, rubbing his eyes to see him better. He neither believes all of this is happening, Jisung thought he would wake up without this unusual boy in his friend’s apartment.

“H20,” replies the soldier.

“Water. We call it water,” intervenes Jaemin, perhaps sounding too harsh even for his moody morning self.

He must fix that, he doesn’t want his mouth covered in ice again.

“Can I have water, please?” asks the boy now, looking a bit shy.

“No food?”

He denies.

“I won’t poison you, I promise.”

He shakes his head to the sides.

“Okay, your loss.”

“Nana, the chauffeur is waiting for me. I’ll buy breakfast on my way to school,” Jisung says, looking at his phone.

Jaemin is not surprised when he sees Jisung coming out of Renjun’s room with one of his spare backpacks and jackets, hence he raises an eyebrow at him. After waving his friend goodbye, he sighs, mentally preparing himself to face the experiment.

It’s weird.

Jaemin doesn’t have a problem with people looking at him, in fact, he likes that kind of attention. He knows he is good-looking and is used to random men staring at him. But there’s something in the guy’s eyes that makes him feel exposed, nervous, as he could see through him. He didn’t list telepathy as one of his powers, right?

They glance at each other for a few seconds, until Jaemin remembers he is supposed to give him a glass of water.

“Renjun will wake up in like an hour and I got the feeling Jisung will be here around 4 PM. We all have keys so don’t open the door if someone is knocking,” he announces nonchalantly to the other for who-knows-what reason, perhaps to fill the silence.

The experiment nods and hands him the empty glass almost immediately, muttering a wary “Thank you.”

Jaemin doesn’t answer, he quickly picks his backpack and walks to the front door to leave. He can’t be late for Biochemistry again.

Still, he stops when he hears the guy stuttering behind him.

“Do you need anything else?” Jaemin asks, trying to sound gentle this time.

“I think… my name is Jeno,” whispers the boy, as if it’s a secret.

Jaemin frowns, what’s the fuss about revealing his name? It’s not that hard, everyone has a name, and it’s easier to say a word rather than the numbers he told them before.

However, Jaemin is trying to be nice, so he nods and forces himself to smile even if he just wants to roll his eyes.

“Goodbye, Jeno.”

Unlike Jaemin, Jeno will never forget that smile.

❅❆❅

When Jaemin is back at his place, all his hopes of Jeno being just a nightmare vanishes.

He is on the couch with Jisung and Renjun sitting at his sides, half-watching a terrible sci-fi movie, half-arguing about the awful characterization of aliens in that shitty film.

Even if the Na Jaemin of 8 PM on a Friday is an exhausted man whose plan is lay in bed until the next day, he is also a curious man.

Curiosity has an easy win over the heaviness in his eyes and soon he finds himself involved in one of the most extravagant conversations of his life, and he's had drunk discussions with Donghyuck AND Yangyang.

“But it’s all humans’ fault!” exclaims Jeno, visibly annoyed by now.

The apartment trembles.

Jaemin would be lying if he says he doesn’t feel slightly scared about that, the wooden floor wouldn’t resist getting soaked again and they don’t have money to repair it. His worries about the well-being of the floor and his wallet make him miss Renjun’s answer, but he is back to reality when Jeno talks again and the quivering intensifies.

“Humans are the ones who had been messing with aliens for decades! They capture the habitants of every planet they reach, every being who is unlucky enough to cross paths with them. They’re the worst in the entire solar system. And they know eventually aliens will come here and take revenge, that’s why they created us… they’re experimenting with animals too! They’re ruining as many lives as they can just because they’re stupid and can’t apologize.”

Jeno ends his rant with heavy breathing and an undecipherable expression in his eyes, like he is trying hard to contain himself.

Nobody can say a thing; the humans just look at each other with bewildered expressions.

And then someone’s knocks at the door.

The temperature in the apartment decreases abruptly.

Jaemin shivers. He can’t tell if it’s another quake or just him.

“It’s okay, it’s Hyuck. He just texted me,” Renjun says. He shows his phone screen to them for a few seconds and then runs to open the door.

The shaking stops, but the air is still cold.

Jaemin stays on his seat, looking at nowhere in particular but in Jeno’s direction. He can’t process the whole situation yet. He wishes he could walk through the door and stop being involved in that mess.

Donghyuck appears and everyone shifts their attention to him, who is obviously informed of the current situation thanks to their group chat.

“I brought a few things for our Elsa”, announces the golden-haired boy, taking out a variety of snacks from his tote bag, “He needs to know how we live.”

“Who is Elsa?” Jeno asks, furrowing his brows in confusion.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t watched Frozen,” utters Donghyuck in disbelief.

“Do you think they have Disney marathons with the aliens? Sleepovers with the scientists?” Renjun questions with a raised brow.

"No, but we should have one tonight.”

An hour and a half later, when Renjun and Donghyuck have sung their respective favorite songs, Jeno has admitted he is like a male Elsa and Jisung has eaten all the snacks, the boy with a Mary Poppins complex takes out more things of his bag.

Jaemin is confused when he sees a scissor.

“Okay, that was good, but I didn’t come for a movie,” says Donghyuck. “Neither for you,” he adds, pointing at Renjun.

“What is it now?” Jaemin asks. He can feel himself getting annoyed again and blames the alien for his bad temper.

“This is for Jeno,” Donghyuck announces, showing them a black hair dye.

It’s the first time Jaemin hears that name from another mouth and… it’s weird. He kind of regrets bragging on their group chat about being the only one who knew the soldier’s name because obviously his friends would ask Jeno to tell them.

“What is that for?” Jisung questions.

“He is finally free!” Donghyuck says as if it means something, rolling his eyes when he doesn’t get an instant response. “He can’t be trapped here for the rest of his life, you know? He needs to go out! There’s literally a whole new world waiting for him.”

“I’m pretty sure there's a lot of dangerous people waiting for him out there, not the world,” comments Jaemin with a palpable irritation in his voice by now.

“I know! That’s why we need to change his appearance, so they won’t recognize him.”

“Hyuck has a point,” Renjun adds.

If Jaemin were in a good mood, he would have joked about it. But he isn’t, therefore he just raises a brow to his roommate.

“He can’t be here forever… and he needs to go unnoticed,” mumbles Jisung.

“Do you wanna go out?” Renjun asks the soldier.

Jeno nods enthusiastic at that, and it’s all it takes for Donghyuck to grab the experiment’s arm and drag him to the bathroom.

In the middle of a Netflix original movie that nobody is really watching, Donghyuck shouts them to close their eyes for a surprise.

Jaemin snorts but does it anyway.

Maybe he shouldn’t have.

Because if the first time Jaemin saw Jeno he thought he was ethereally handsome, now he looks astonishingly cute. His hair is shorter than before and styled with dark locks covering his forehead.

It makes him look younger and… real.

With all the traces of silver gone, the only thing left is a confused and adorable boy who wouldn’t kill a fly (even if he is more than qualified to kill the entire human race).

Donghyuck throws himself on the floor and sighs dramatically, as if he’s tired. A few seconds later, he talks. “I’m proud of my creation, what do you think?”

“He looks cute,” Renjun comments.

“Jeno! You should try to be an actor and make good aliens’ movies,” Jisung suggest, too excited for Jaemin’s liking.

Jeno nods at the compliments and forces a little smile, not used to getting compliments.

Jaemin can feel three pairs of eyes on him, expecting what he's going to say.

It’s awful. It’s horrible. He doesn’t like it. He can’t like it. All of this is stupid. He won’t compliment an alien.

Jaemin sighs.

“It’s not that bad.”

Jeno beams.

Jaemin thinks about it for the rest of the night.

❅❆❅

Jeno sleeps the third night.

He isn’t tired at all; he spent the day lazing on the couch and watching movies with the humans. But he wants… no, he needs to shut his brain down, or else he will go insane.

Maybe he already is.

Blood.

There’s blood on his hands, on his clothes and all he can see.

It falls from the sky.

He doesn’t want to look up.

But Jeno can never do what he wants.

_Chenle._

“You killed me!” says a voice from above him and it echoes throughout the forest.

“I… I… I’m sorry…” stutters Jeno.

His eyes are leaking. The outcome is red.

“I will never forgive you!”

Jeno wants to apologize one more time, but now his neck is dripping crimson too.

He wakes up screaming his lungs out.

Jaemin is around the half of his Electromagnetism worksheet when a loud scream breaks his concentration. He cautiously opens the door of his room, holding a book as a weapon. There’s nothing at the right side of the living room, but at the left…

He turns on the lights to find Jeno sobbing hysterically on the floor, head buried between his knees.

Jaemin notices the lack of freezing air or trembles and it worries him. What can make a lethal soldier cry like that? If it there was a treat, he would be using his powers, not crying.

Jaemin kneels next to Jeno and awkwardly pats his back, trying to comfort him.

Jeno looks at him with an indecipherable expression, infinite tears running down his cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” he says between hiccups.

“About what?” Jaemin asks, more confused and concerned than before.

Jeno hides his face again and cries for an eternity, as if all the ice of the universe melt inside him and is overflowing through his eyes.

Somehow Jaemin notices that the bandage on his arm and leg is gone, leaving just a simple scar behind but, at this point, a fast-healing power is the last of his worries.

Jaemin is growing desperate. He looks at Renjun’s door hoping his friend would hear the sobs and wake up. He doesn’t know how to handle other people’s feelings, not when they look so… vulnerable and broken.

He turns on the TV for a distraction, but it doesn’t work. Jeno doesn’t even glance at it.

Then Jaemin’s eyes land on everything they have in the living room, searching for something flashy enough to catch Jeno’s attention and drag him out of the misery pool he is flooding on.

And then he sees it.

At the top of their shelf, Jaemin spots the bionic hand prototype he made last semester.

He tiptoes to grab it and crouches beside Jeno, petting his hair with the plastic hand.

Jeno stares at him at the sudden contact and his eyes go wide open when he figures out what is touching him.

“Look at this,” Jaemin says waving the false extremity. “It says hi.”

“What is that?” Jeno asks, confusion glowing in his wet eyes.

“Um… not all humans have hands. Sometimes they’re born without it or lose it, so… I’m learning how to help them by doing this,” Jaemin stumbles to say, unsure of how to explain biomedical engineering to someone without much knowledge about the real world.

Jeno nods while his right hand reaches for the fake one, tilting his head to observe it better. Jaemin lets him grab it and examine it, feeling relieved because his idea worked out.

Curiosity always wins.

“For any reason…” Jeno mumbles and then sighs, staring at Jaemin with sorrowful eyes, “could you do… a neck?”

Jaemin frowns immediately at the soldier’s words.

No, he can’t make a neck. People die when they don’t have one.

No, he can’t tell Jeno the truth, not when ‘sad’ isn’t enough to describe how he looks.

“Maybe when I graduate,” Jaemin lies. “I’ll sleep now,” he excuses himself then and quickly leaves to his room, not wanting to hear an answer.

He closes the door and cries out of frustration, out of fear.

How can someone lose their neck?

❅❆❅

After a long discussion in his friends’ group chat, they all agree they need more information about Jeno. It’s not that they doubt him (well, Jaemin does), but they can’t make a good plan to help him if they aren’t properly informed.

And Yangyang is the best man to make Operation Jeno start.

“NANAAAAAAAAA! Long time no see!” Yangyang shouts when he exits the classroom and finds Jaemin standing outside of it. He walks to his friend and slings an arm over his shoulders. “What brings you here, at Biostatistics for dummies?”

“You aren’t dumb, you failed because you partied the night before the exam,” says Jaemin, sounding harsh but at the same time clinging onto Yangyang. He is right about one thing: they haven’t seen each other in a while.

“I partied before Anatomy too and I passed that one.”

“Because I let you copy my exam.”

“Touché, I still owe you a favor.”

“About that…” Jaemin drawls, freeing himself of his friend’s arm to look at him with his best puppy eyes and pout.

“Oh, what do you want?” Yangyang asks, raising his brows. “Is it money? Food? A blind date? A kiss?”

“I don’t need a favor for you to kiss me,” Jaemin replies with a wink.

“Gross,” Yangyang jokes, poking Jaemin’s side with his index finger. “Anyway, what does my smart friend want?”

“So, there’s this old lady in my building, she’s senile I guess… she always talks about her grandson. She says he isn’t here anymore but can’t remember why so… I was wondering…”

Yangyang’s smile falls a little. “You want my father to check up his name on the police’s records, right?”

Jaemin nods.

He doesn’t get an instant response.

“Don’t midterms start next week?” Jaemin improvises, he can’t miss this opportunity. “You might need some help.”

“I’d lie to the entire police station for you, Nana,” Yangyang says, and it’s his time to wink now.

“Cheesy.”

“I have to leave for my next class, so text me everything you know about the boy. And...” Yangyang holds Jaemin’s hand, “tomorrow at mine’s, around five?”

“Sure.”

With a last hand squeeze, Yangyang leaves.

Jaemin sighs.

Why is life suddenly so complicated?

Oh, right.

Jeno.

❅❆❅

It’s past midnight when Jaemin reaches his apartment’s door.

He takes a moment to fix his clothes and hair because he knows Renjun will judge him.

Jaemin isn’t surprised to find Donghyuck and Jisung playing cards in the living room, it’s a common sight of them. But he isn’t prepared to deal with four pair of eyes looking at him with different expressions.

"I was studying with Yangyang, it’s part of the agreement,” Jaemin says while taking off his jacket.

“And I was born yesterday,” scoffs Renjun.

Jaemin is about to reply something that could start a fight when Jeno talks.

“Who is Yangyang?”

“He is a friend,” Jaemin answers to Jeno, but he is looking at Renjun while doing it.

“What is a friend?” Jeno questions.

“Someone you like to hang out with, make jokes and help each other,” Jisung replies, noticing the weird atmosphere between their older friends.

“Oh... am I your friend too?” Jeno inquires looking at Jaemin.

“Yeah, sort of.”

Jaemin blames the beer he drank earlier for the way his heart jumps when Jeno smiles.

Two hours later, Jaemin wakes up with a headache and the floor trembling under his feet.

He sprints towards the door to check on his friends, only to find Renjun fighting Donghyuck on the floor while they invent a new curse language and Jisung is recording the scene with his phone.

He almost doesn’t see Jeno hiding under the table, chocking on tears as he watches the fight.

“Guys…” Jaemin whispers without knowing what to do. “GUYS!!”

Only Jisung seems to hear him, but the boy just stares blank at Jeno as the wind swirls and throws away the nearest chair to the experiment.

Jaemin sighs, crawls under the table and tries to calm Jeno down by stroking his hair.

He’s scared his hand might freeze.

It doesn’t happen.

Jeno knows humans are violent, his entire life is the outcome of that.

However, he has expected these guys to be different. He doesn’t want to see more fights, not even one about something stupid as a card game.

Jeno learns violence will never end, no matter how much he runs away.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!!!!!💕💕💕💕💕  
i had this idea around august but i was focused on other things so i'm just posting it now;; i hope you like it! i know this seems like a big introduction but i would really appreciate if you let me know what you think about this mess! also i know my english isn't the best, if you found a mistake please tell me so i can learn and fix it uwu  
thank you again!!!!!💕💕💕


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